China’s youngest crew up to now is on its strategy to the Tiangong space station.
A Long March 2F rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center within the Gobi Desert today (Oct. 25) at 11:14 p.m. EDT (0314 GMT or 11:14 a.m. Beijing Time on Oct. 26), carrying the Shenzhou 17 spacecraft and its three-person crew into orbit.
The spacecraft separated from the launch vehicle as planned 10 minutes into the flight, the China National Space Administration announced, declaring the launch “an entire success.”
Aboard are mission commander Tang Hongbo, 48, a veteran of Shenzhou 12 — the primary crewed mission to the then under-construction Tiangong — and crewmates and former fighter pilots Tang Shengjie, 34, and Jiang Xinlin, 35.
Together, the trio are the youngest crew to go to Tiangong. They’re expected to rendezvous and dock with Tiangong around 6.5 hours after launch and start a six-month-long stay in orbit.
“The space station is one other home for us on the journey from Earth to the vast universe,” Tang said at a pre-launch press conference earlier today. “With the intention to return to space, prior to now two years, I even have raced against time to finish physical and mental recovery while carrying out studies and training.”
Waiting aboard Tiangong are Shenzhou 16 astronauts Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao. The trio will hand over control of the orbital outpost and prepare for his or her return to Earth, scheduled for Oct. 31. Jing, Zhu and Gui have been aboard since late May.
The Shenzhou 17 astronauts will conduct science experiments, maintain the space station and perform science outreach and other activities during their mission.
The crew are also slated to perform the primary extravehicular experimental maintenance spacewalk outside of Tiangong. China began constructing the modular space station in April 2021 and, based on officials, it has already taken a couple of hits.
“Currently, space debris is increasing, so the impacts of small space objects on long-duration operational spacecraft are inevitable,” Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the CMSA, said in the course of the pre-launch press conference.
“Previous inspection revealed that the space station’s solar panels had also been hit several times by tiny objects in space, suffering minor damage, after all which was taken into consideration during our design.”
China accomplished its three-module Tiangong in late 2022. The country goals to maintain the orbital outpost permanently occupied for no less than a decade.
The station is currently about 20% as massive because the International Space Station, based on Chinese space officials. China’s human spaceflight agency is developing a multipurpose extension module so as to add to Tiangong, changing it from a “T” shape to that of an “X.” The extension module would then allow further modules to be added to the station.
The Long March 2F that launched the Shenzhou 17 mission had been in a state of near readiness at Jiuquan for the reason that launch of Shenzhou 16, so it might be prepared for liftoff as a lifeboat at short notice within the event of an emergency.
Shenzhou 17 is the sixth crewed mission to Tiangong and China’s twelfth astronaut flight overall. Supplies for the mission were delivered aboard the Tianzhou 6 cargo mission in May this yr. Latest supplies might be sent aboard Tianzhou 7 in the primary half of 2024.
Yang Liwei became China’s first astronaut in space in 2003 aboard Shenzhou 5, which made the country only the third to realize independent human spaceflight capabilities after the previous Soviet Union, now Russia, and the US.
India recently conducted a flight abort test as a part of a program to launch its astronauts to orbit in 2025.